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Cookies for a Cause: The Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie that started it all

1 Jun

Baking cookies to help fight kids’ cancer might be the most worthy cause I’ve ever baked for.

Have you ever heard of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer? If you haven’t, you should check out the link and read more about it. It’s a very worthy cause: bake sales to help find a cure for kids’ cancer.

Earlier this year I did a story about a local bake sale event hosted by Heather Wirtz, the editor of the Macaroni Kids newsletter for the Cranston/Kent area. The sale raised money for the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer non-profit organization and it was hugely successful. I baked one of my favorite Christmas Cookie recipes, Brown Eyed Susans, for the bake sale.

At the event itself I was given several handouts to help me in writing my article and I met one of the family members, Bonnie Soper, who told me how her cousin Gretchen lost her son to childhood cancer several years ago. Gretchen and her husband founded Cookies for Kids Cancer as a way to fight back, and they started with a simple bake sale.

One of the handouts that was given to me was for the “Cookies for Kids’ Cancer Best Bake Sale Cookbook” and on the flip side was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies and it was entitled, “The Cookie That Started It All.”

Other than the baking time, which was cut off, the full recipe was there, and I decided that I wanted to try out the recipe some day, in honor of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. I wrote the news story about Heather’s bake sale in January and it was almost June before I had the chance to try out the cookie recipe.

They were delicious and with every bite I thought of this important cause, and I knew I had to write about it. I’m so grateful and thankful every day that my family has its health. Those who know me well, know my kids are sick constantly, weekly, and it’s exhausting keeping up with it all. But they’re not terminally ill, and I keep that in mind daily as well as every week when I’m running someone to a doctor for one ailment or other. We are very, very lucky. In the big picture, they are healthy.

Caroline was a big help with these cookies, scooping and pressing the batter for each and every one.

Speaking of my kids, my daughter Caroline was a big help to me this past weekend as I made these cookies to take with us to a Memorial Day cookout. The recipe yields quite a few cookies and that’s one reason I made it. There were enough to bring and enough to leave some home as well. I made all the batter and she scooped it onto the tray and flattened them to go into the oven.

The recipe, as I said above, did not have the bake time on the card, which was an advertisement for the cookbook. But, I looked up a similar recipe in one of my cookbooks here and found that 10-12 minutes on a cookie sheet was the perfect time. The only time I went over that time was when I used a baking stone. I find that those take longer for cookies to bake than the metal trays.

I hope you’ll consider doing a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale for your organization’s next fundraiser, or that the next time you’re looking for a unique gift, you go to their site and order some Cookies for Kids’ Cancer cookies to be sent to that special someone.

And now, here is the recipe, the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie that started it all.

This recipe makes a lot of batter so you need a good, strong mixer to mix it up.

CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL COOKIES

Yield: 3-4 dozen cookies
INGREDIENTS

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg at room temperature

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup quick cooking oats or old fashioned rolled oats

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. kosher salt (I didn’t have kosher)

3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cookies bake until lightly browned around the edges.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Place butter and sugars in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle and beat until smooth and creamy.

Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, one at a time, beating well between additions.

Place the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl; mix well and add to the butter mixture.

Beat until everything is well incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the chocolate chips and beat again.

(You can cover this and refrigerated up to one week.)

Form the dough into heaping teaspoon sized-balls and place them about two inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet. I used the smaller Pampered Chef scoop to scoop out my balls of dough.

Using your palm, gently press down.

*At this point the recipe begins to say how you can alternately roll the dough into a log, and it gets cut off here. I assume it says you can slice and bake them. The baking time is cut off as well, since this was an advertisement for the cookbook. However, I can take it from here.*

Bake 10-12 minutes on a cookie sheet, slightly longer on the baking stones, until lightly browned around the edges.

Let sit 1-2 minutes on cookie sheet to cool before removing to cool completely on wire racks.

Consider hosting a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale for your organization’s next fundraiser.

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Grandma Grello’s Green Bean Marinade

22 May

Marinated green beans are great for cookouts and great to bring to a party. This is one of our favorite summer “regulars.”

Grandma Grello’s birthday is this week. There’s a story surrounding her birthday where she was born on one day but it didn’t get recorded for a few days, making the date on her birth certificate different than the date that she was actually born. This makes her birthday date a little sketchy, but we always celebrate it some time this week. In honor of that, I thought I’d share her Green Bean Marinade recipe with you today. Summer is here and we’ve already made this once, one time of many over the upcoming months.

One thing we’ve discovered, is that if you want to, when you’re done marinating the green beans, you can re-use the marinade to marinate broccoli, which is also very good.

Last time I made this, Caroline picked the beans, minced the garlic and pretty much did the entire recipe herself with my supervision, so it’s a good recipe for kids who like to help in the kitchen, as mine do, and I love the idea of passing along family recipes to my kids at a young age, so that when they’re old enough to do their own cooking, they’ll have all their favorite recipes on hand and they will have made them, too.

GRAM GRELLO’S GREEN BEAN MARINADE

Caroline made most of this recipe by herself last time around. Her garlic was so perfectly minced, I thought Grandpa Grello had come back and done it himself, as he was always known for the most perfectly cut ingredients when he cooked.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound clean, snapped fresh green beans, the ends picked

1/3 cup blend of olive oil and vegetable (or canola) oil

1/4 cup white vinegar or cider vinegar (we use white mostly)

salt

pepper

parsley

garlic

Caroline has the marinade ready and awaiting the cooked beans.

DIRECTIONS

Bring salted water to a boil in 2 qt. sauce pan.

Drop in beans.

Bring to a boil and cook for 10-15 minutes uncovered.

Remove with a slotted spoon (apparently this step is the most important. Spoon must be slotted.)

Don’t drain or rinse and place beans into the bowl that has the marinade.

Marinate in the fridge for several hours.

Remove garlic and serve. (We never remove the garlic.)

Wings, roasted potatoes and marinated green beans; a simple summertime meal.

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Thinking outside the birthday party box

21 May

Birthday parties for kids can have a tendency to take on a life of their own.

Our family is full of rules.

We more often say no than yes, it seems, and we have a rule for everything.

We can’t help it, that’s just how we are and it works for us, at least for now. That being said, we have birthday party rules at our house. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll tell again just so I can get on with my story for today.

Our rules are as follows: You can’t have a “friend party” until you are five and when you do, you can have it at the house with five kids. At six, seven, eight and nine, you can have your birthday party out of the house, with more people (within reason, and we never invite the entire class or grade, or even “all the girls”).

At ten you’re back to having it at the house with just a few people. We like the “Almost Sleepover” or “Mock Sleepover” (come in pj’s stay late, go home to bed) at ten because many people (ourselves included) do not allow their kids to sleep at someone else’s house and our kids tend to turn ten before other people’s kids are ten. At 11 and beyond they can have a sleepover if they want, with a few kids (our house is not huge and there are already five of us in it at all times, so space constraints are an issue) or we can discuss another inexpensive, small outing option if desired.

Now that you have the back story on our birthday party rules, here’s where I was going with all of that.

We have to give Alex all the credit for thinking out of the box for this party.

Our youngest daughter turned seven at the end of the month a couple of months ago. We opted to hold off on the friend party until after the Easter holidays and after school vacation, which led us to the end of April. However, way back in October, she already knew what kind of party she wanted: a cooking party and she wanted it to be at home. She planned the entire thing out herself. It would be a Hello Kitty theme. They would make homemade pizza (we do that a lot here) and decorate cupcakes (which turned into decorating donuts when we got the Babycakes Donut Maker as a Christmas gift) and decorate aprons.

We were thrilled. Birthday parties out of the house tend to be expensive: $10 per kid on the low end and as much as $17 per kid or more on the higher end, with some having a minimum of paying for ten kids whether they are there or not. Some include food, some do not. Some include invitations, some do not. However, “everyone does it” so we have tried to keep up while establishing what we feel are fair rules and reasonable budgets for our parties, and having had to say no to some party options our kids have thrown out at us as suggestions in the past.

But I can’t lie: we were jumping for joy in our heads when she explained what she wanted for her party.

The day of the party came, and she had invited seven kids to come. They all were able to come except one, so there were seven little girls plus my two older daughters who served as the helpers.

First activity: making a variety of homemade pizzas.

We bought enough dough that every pair could make one pizza (and Elizabeth helped out when the seventh friend didn’t arrive). We had two cheese and sauce pizzas, one mushroom, olive and cheese pizza, and one cheese and pepperoni pizza.

That week, I found a “20% off your whole purchase” coupon for Michael’s Crafts, so I went and got 8 aprons. I already had fabric markers here, but I bought a set just in case mine were dried out, but I didn’t need them so I returned them along with an extra apron.

I made the donuts from scratch with Caroline ahead of time, along with the chocolate frosting with Elizabeth while the kids were making their aprons, and each child was able to decorate and eat four donuts. I had purchased one Hello Kitty cake decorating kit which contained sprinkles, cupcake wrappers, candies and tooth pick decorations, and I split it for use between the family party and the friend party. I bought all my paper goods at the dollar store in time for the family party and used what was left for the friend party.

And no, I didn’t care that the paper goods weren’t Hello Kitty. Apparently no one else cared either.

Second activity: decorating aprons.

The kids had a blast.

Alex had a blast.

The moms that stayed, loved it.

We had fun, and it was an easy party. I was relaxed at the end, not exhausted and not broke. It was as much fun (maybe more so) than any party we’ve had out of the house, and best of all, she was happy.

The entire party cost us $32.

We didn’t figure that part out until the end, as we weren’t trying to keep it that low on purpose, but when the party was over and we sat back and realized all we’d been able to do at such a low price, we were amazed.

It just goes to show that even though we sometimes live in a “top this” kind of world and there’s lots of keeping up to be done, that it doesn’t always have to be that way. You can think out of the box, as Alex did back in October, and do something different and still have fun.

It may not always be this way. She may want to have her next party somewhere else, and we’re more than willing to oblige, as long as it stays within the parameters we’ve set, but for now, we’re celebrating the success of this year’s party and remembering more often than not, that it can be done.

PRICELESS.

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Jacob’s Cookbook

27 Apr

A brownie recipe from Jacob's new cookbook

I know I’ve mentioned it in the past, but I meet some amazing people in my job at the newspaper, and I mean really amazing. So often I come home after a story, completely stunned by what I’ve just learned about the person I’ve just interviewed. Two weekends ago I had an interview that completely blew me away both as a parent and as someone who loves food and cooking.

Two weekends ago I met Jacob.

Jacob is 14. He’s an eighth grade student and he’s about to publish a cookbook as part of a project he has to do for school. The proceeds from his cookbook will benefit the local community food bank.

That in itself is amazing, but that’s not what blew me away, actually.

Here’s what did: when I interviewed Jacob I asked him where he got all of his recipes from for his cookbook.

His answer: he made them up.

Jacob has not only created a cookbook at age 14, which will benefit a worthy cause, but he created all of the recipes himself from scratch, including how much of each ingredient for each recipe. He created the cookbook page layouts, made all of the recipes, took all the photos of all the foods, and typed them all up himself.

I just about fell out of my chair.

I said to Jacob, “That. is. amazing.”

Jacob with his cookbook before it goes to print.

Jacob said he knew that, but I don’t think he REALLY knew that. I mean I don’t think I could just MAKE UP a recipe (never mind a cookbook full of them) and figure out all the stuff that has to go in it, all by myself and I am FORTY YEARS OLD-I’ve been cooking for several of his lifetimes and I couldn’t do that!!

I sat and interviewed Jacob for about 45 minutes or so, and my article about him can be seen here.

More importantly though, I have one of Jacob’s dessert recipes right HERE on my blog!  That’s right, he was kind enough to share one of his recipes with me and one with the newspaper. I am so glad that the one I have is a dessert recipe, since apparently Jacob and I both have a sweet tooth.

Here it is, Jacob’s recipe which he created himself for Orange Zest Brownies.

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“As most people know, opposites attract. Well it is the same for flavors in food. A citrus flavor will go great with a sweet and creamy flavor. That is why orange chocolate brownies are perfect! Enjoy!” -Jacob Gebhart,  Amazing Appetizers and Decadent Desserts

Easy ingredients!

INGREDIENTS

BROWNIES

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/3 cup shortening (I used 1/3 cup butter instead.)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 TBSP orange zest
FROSTING

3 oz. cream cheese

1-2 TBSP milk

2 and 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 TBSP orange zest

The orange zest gives it a great flavor.

DIRECTIONS

BROWNIES

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray an 8×8 baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Heat chocolate and shortening in a 2 quart sauce pan over low heat, stirring constantly until melted.

Remove from heat, add sugar, eggs, vanilla, mix well. Then add remaining ingredients and stir until combined.

Spread batter in prepared pan evenly.

Bake for 25 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Make sure to cool completely before cutting and frosting.

FROSTING

With an electric mixer, on medium speed, combine cream cheese and 1 TBSP of milk.

Add sugar, a little at a time, beat after each addition. (I added the last TBSP of milk halfway through as it got thick.)

Then add the orange zest and combine.

Cut cooled brownies into 9 pieces. Spread each square with orange cream frosting.

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I found the recipe very easy to follow and quick and easy to make, just how I like my recipes to be! If you’re a taster when you bake, I highly recommend tasting the batter after the sugar is added but before the eggs. SO GOOD. I also tasted the cream cheese frosting before and after the zest was added, to see just how much the zest changed the flavor, and I was amazed at what a little bit of zest can do both to the texture (it was immediately creamier) and to the taste (it did now have that hint of orange flavor in it.)

For the orange zest, I used the zest from two medium oranges and split it between the batter and the frosting. It did work out to be just about one whole tablespoon in each, I’d say.

I opted to serve my frosting “on the side” as optional because with all the different likes and don’t likes at my house,  I didn’t want anyone not to want the brownies because they had “stuff” on them.

I also took half the batch to a friend’s house one afternoon and we enjoyed them with our coffee.

Great job Jacob, thanks for sharing your recipe with me! It truly was a decadent dessert!

Anyone who is interested in purchasing Jacob’s cookbook, Amazing Appetizers and Decadent Desserts, when it’s published, please send an email to Jacob at jayg@cox.net.

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By popular demand: A recipe for another of Sue’s treats

19 Apr

These little bits seem like one small bite, but you can never eat just one!

Last week we had PTO and Book Club. Sure enough, my good friend Sue brought snack for us all. It was one of my faves, a chocolate/caramel/matzo snack that she makes for passover. I was so lucky, she sent some home with me (and no, she hadn’t seen the 4/13  blog post about her snacks yet!)

This photo is from the ones she sent home with me. When we took the photo the camera was accidentally on the wrong setting, so the color is slightly off. However, once we ate the snack there was no retaking the photo!

Since I wrote about Sue and all her yummy desserts, I’ve had several requests for the matzo snack. Sue actually recommended making it ahead and freezing it if you’d like to. She said it stays well.

I actually have two different recipes for it so I’m going to post one today and one tomorrow. One calls for Saltines, one calls for Graham Crackers. One uses salted butter and one uses unsalted. Although they differ slightly, the snack is basically the same overall. You can pick one and sub in the matzo crackers for the Saltines or the Graham Crackers. I have made both.

Here’s the first version for you. This one I posted on Facebook in March 2010 after seeing it in an issue of Country Living Magazine a few years back. Here’s the post:

“Mama’s Sweet and Saltines”

Not my mama this time. I got this recipe out of Country Living magazine and it’s Trisha Yearwood’s mama I guess.

I’d actually had this before, but just found the recipe for it the other day. The only thing I didn’t have on hand was the unsalted butter, which Don promptly bought after seeing the recipe.

40 Saltine Crackers (can use graham crackers for a sweeter taste.
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (about 1 1/2 cups.)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Line a large-rimmed cookie sheet with foil and the forty crackers. Be sure the pan you choose will fit in your freezer and be sure you have space in your freezer for the pan!!!

In a medium saucepan melt butter and brown sugar together and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and pour over crackers covering them evenly.

Put cookie sheet in oven and watch closely. Bake for about 5 minutes (mine took three) until just bubbly.

Remove from oven and pour chocolate chips over crackers.

When chips begin to melt, spread them over crackers with a knife.

Transfer pan to freezer for 15 to 20 minutes or until completely cold. The chocolate covered crackers will forma solid sheet. Break into pieces and store in airtight container.

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A book for your kids: “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts?”

12 Apr

Joy Feldman wears a wig when she reads to students that really does look like it's made of donuts!

There are so many reasons I love my job at the newspaper, but one of my favorite things is all of the amazing people I get to meet, all of the things I get to learn about through my interviews.

Today’s children’s book is one that I found out about through my work at the paper. Local author Joy Feldman spoke at one of the schools in our city and I covered her visit. What an amazing woman! You can read my full article about her here.

Feldman’s book, “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts” is her second book, but her first book geared towards children. Her goal is to encourage children and families to eat healthier foods, and to remember that you truly are what you eat.

The story revolves around the two main characters, Maddie and Matt and their quest for healthy eating. It even includes some of Matt and Maddie’s favorite recipes in the back of the book. The book also comes with a free downloadable teachers’ guide to coordinates with the book.

You can order Feldman’s books on her website and you can take a look at all she has to offer, including her adult book, “Joyful Cooking: In Pursuit of Good Health,” which Feldman says is more than a cookbook, it’s a resource for pursuing a healthy lifestyle.

I’m thrilled to have my own copy of “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts” for my family, thanks to Joy, and the title does make me think quite a bit about my own eating habits.

I believe my hair might just be made of chocolate chips!

Your kids will love reading about Matt and Maddie and learning about how your eating habits really do make a difference! Teachers will love the guide that goes along with the book.

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After School Snack: Strawberry Banana Yogurt Smoothies

11 Apr

Great for sore throats, warm weather, a healthy snack!

We had an unusually warm, hot actually, March this year. The weather broke all kinds of records and we loved the taste of summer that came during spring. It meant a couple of things for us though: First it meant that springtime allergies kicked in early, so everyone started with sore throats and runny noses in March instead of April. Second, it meant that the daily “can we get ice cream” and “can we get frozen lemonade” questions started early as well.

When I pick my kids up at school we drive by one of our city’s popular ice cream drive ups as well as past our favorite frozen lemonade stand. On occasion, on super hot summer days we’ll stop there after school as a treat, but I wasn’t really ready to start that in March. Not yet. It’s an expensive treat, one we don’t do too often.

One particularly hot afternoon, as an answer to their pleas, I decided to make smoothies, something I often do as an after school snack, but not usually in March. On this particular afternoon though, I had fresh strawberries in my fridge, (frozen works well too) and I had bananas in my freezer, which I often use for banana bread, but they work well for smoothies too. I had some vanilla yogurt in my fridge, so I felt I could easily pull off some smoothies for an after school snack.

A blender doesn't have to be expensive to make a delicious treat!

My “recipe” isn’t exact, but into my blender I threw: a bunch of strawberries, two frozen bananas, milk, about a cup of vanilla yogurt, and some ice to make it have a frozen feel, like a milkshake, but healthier.

I added a dollop of whipped cream and a straw and I had a restaurant-quality summer beverage for my kids for after school. Not bad! Everyone was happy and I was glad there was even enough for me to have some!

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Knorr sauce mix: sometimes you just need quick and easy

5 Apr

I was going to put the salad right on the plate, but I just couldn't. I'm definitely an "on the side" girl!

Not everything has to be from scratch, not everything has to be a full course meal every time.

Yup, that’s what I try to tell myself on a regular basis.

Don’t get me wrong, we have mac and cheese with hot dogs at our house too.

Sometimes.

On occasion.

Next time we do, I’ll take a photo and post it.

Shortcuts are good!

I actually LOVE mac and cheese and hot dogs, and it has to be the kind of mac and cheese out of a box.

With the powdered cheese sauce.

But, I digress.

With busy schedules that are never the same and with holidays and birthdays mixed in there, sometimes I just need something quick and easy to make for dinner.

Last week’s dinner was one of those nights. I had to leave right after dinner for Girl Scouts and while I was cooking dinner I was helping whoever needed it, with homework too. This ended up also being the night that my daughter accidentally fell on the stairs while trying to jump up and touch the door jamb, hitting her head instead and knocking herself out, with a slice of pepperoni in her mouth.

It was a crazy night.

But again, I digress.

My cousin had given me a package of Knorr Garlic and Herb sauce that she’d tried, when I was at her house last. She’d had it over veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots) and she thought I’d like it.

I was going to make it over a veggie to go with our meal last week, tortellini, when I realized that on the front of the package itself it showed the sauce over tortellini, so I decided to try that. I chose asparagus for my veggie and had a fast and easy, complete, relatively healthy meal in a matter of a few minutes.

My kids all liked it, so I’d make it again for sure.

So today’s post isn’t a recipe exactly, it’s more a product review I guess, or a meal suggestion. The recipe for the sauce is contained on the back side of the packet of sauce. Give it a try and see what you think.

And tell me: what is your best shortcut meal idea?

Everyone gave this meal a two-thumbs-up review!

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Nature vs. Nurture and Alex’s List

5 Mar

Our youngest....

When you have a child, one of the first things you notice is how different life is, how different you yourself become. When you have more than one kid, you realize again how different life is, how different you are, and now, how different they each are from each other.

As most of you know, we have three daughters, no boys, and it always amazes me how different they each are, how individual they are despite the fact that we “raise them all the same.”

I’m amazed at who is daring, who is nurturing, who is cautious. Although they may each have indicators of being all of those things, they each have their strengths, weaknesses, and differences. It’s kind of like a science experiment, watching them grow.

As much as we both love to cook, we are strong supporters of the theory that we are not a restaurant, we are not short order cooks and therefore, we only make one meal per night. For the most part, all the kids like at least some part of each meal and if they are still hungry there’s always fruit, yogurt, cheese or cereal if needed. This seems to work out fine for the most part.

However, there’s Alex. Our lefty, our brown-eyed girl, our youngest daughter, our cutie-patootie. She’s always been the one to go off the beaten path, even when she was a baby. For the most part, she hates meat, almost all meats. Every now and again she’ll eat a bbq rib or a meatball, overall she seems to like ground beef and they all love fish. But chicken, or “the other chicken: pork,” or steak, cubed beef, no no and no again. She’s been this way since she started solid foods. We’ve always said she’s our little vegetarian, even though technically she does eat some meat, so yes we do realize she’s not *really* a vegetarian.

One night last week after dinner, when again she did not eat the meat (but had cheese instead) I called her over to me and said that I was beginning to worry because it seemed like she never really liked anything we ate for dinner, and that I was running out of ideas for things to make that she would like. After I said that she looked up at me with her big brown eyes, and she looked sad, like she was in trouble, even though she wasn’t. I instantly felt bad. She said to me, “Mommy, tomorrow I’m going to make you a list of all the things I like because there are more things I DO like than things I DON’T like.”

I love her. I could just eat her up.

Sure enough, the next day she came home from school, did her homework, and asked me for a sheet of loose leaf paper so that she could make me her list. It was so stinkin’ cute, I just had to share it here. I’ve translated it, although I put her original spelling first. I know that she’s left some things off of both lists, and I’m not so sure it helps me with planning out my meals a ton, but we did indeed have “spgety with met ball” for dinner that night.

She does like pizza...

ALEX’S LIST:

I Don’t Like…
corn
chickin   (chicken)
lefstovermacarone   (leftover macaroni)
star berry Jilly    (strawberry jelly)
opukot Jilly    (apricot jelly)
I Like….
frot          (fruit)
pee’s        (peas)
Frinch tost      (french toast)
walfle       (waffle)
pan  cake’s    (pancakes)
maciches     (mac and cheese)
pissa      (pizza)
spgety with met ball    (spaghetti with meatballs)
grild chees     (grilled cheese)
jicinagits    (chicken nuggets)
backin    (bacon)
saled    (salad)

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Donut Maker Update

2 Mar
Babyckaes Donut Maker

My new toy!

Back in January I posted on my blog about our New Year’s Eve Donut Wars. At the time we’d just received our Babycakes Donut Maker and it was our very first time using it. Now that we’ve had it a couple of months, I thought I’d put out a quick update letting you know what we’ve tried since then.

First of all, I am still a huge fan of the donut maker. It’s so much fun to use. To date we have used it three more times since that first time.

We used it in January with a pumpkin spice donut mix that my mother-in-law brought with her when she visited. Before making them that time though, we went to AC Moore and I bought a pastry bag with a tip to use when filling the donut wells. MUCH easier than using a ziploc bag. Caroline has become a pro at filling the wells. I use that time to make the frosting so that we can frost them while they’re slightly warm.

Everyone had their own donuts to frost, their own bowl of frosting and their own spoon.

The next time we used it was for a triple playdate after school. Once the word about us having a donut maker got out, “everyone” wanted to come over and try it out. I decided to bite the bullet and let each kid have one friend over after school all in one day. We’d make the donuts and let the six kids frost them. So later on in January that’s what we did. Although I wasn’t sure if it’d be too much for me to keep organized, it worked out fine. I mixed up the batter and while Caroline filled the wells, her friend helped me make the frosting (a double batch of frosting seems to be enough for all the donuts that one recipe yields.) Then when we were ready to frost, I gave each girl a plate, four donuts to frost, and a bowl of frosting with a spoon. They could do whatever they wanted with their four but couldn’t share with each other (I didn’t want to share germs if they’d been licking their spoons, fingers etc.) I put a common area in the center of the table for sprinkles and decorations. It worked out great. They could then eat their donuts when they were done, or save them to take home, or whatever they wished. It worked out great.

The kids like being able to decorate their donuts however they want to. I try to have plenty of sprinkles out.

Another thing I did differently for the playdate this time from other times, was I used the recipe that came in the box for the Sour Cream Donuts rather than a cake mix, and the recipe for their Chocolate Frosting instead of a tub of frosting. Both were very, very good and easy to make. It made the donuts truly taste like donuts, rather than like cupcakes, which is what happens if you use a cake mix. Both work fine, but if you’re looking for that donut taste, definitely try out their recipes.

Separate work stations for each kid seems to work out great; no cross contamination!

The next time we used it was for a cousins sleepover. We had one of our cousins sleep over during February Vacation Week and we thought it would be fun to make donuts with her for our movie night, and we were right, it was fun!

I used the exact same two recipes and did it the same way, with Caroline filling the wells while I made the frosting. I still kept it to four donuts per kid and we had more leftover, which I sent home with our cousin for her brothers.

Overall, we’ve really enjoyed the Babycakes Donut Maker! We’ve got Alex’s birthday coming up soon and she’s already said that she’d like donuts instead of cupcakes this year, so I’ll take it out again for that, if not sooner. I’m also anxious to try out the other recipes in their booklet. There’s a chocolate donut recipe, a maple donut recipe as well as vanilla glaze and maple glaze frosting recipes. Grandma Rose loves maple glazed donuts so we might just surprise her one day with some.

Now…if I could just get the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker……:)

Here are a couple of other “finished product” photos from our donut making experiences.

The "after" shot.

If you run out of or don't like frosting, there's always powdered sugar on top which is yummy!

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